A Passenger Jet Flips and Burns, but Tragedy Is Averted This Time

Delta Flight 4819’s landing seemed routine — until it wasn’t.

For the 80 people on board, the world lurched immediately after the wheels hit the ground at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon. The plane sparked and burst into flames as it skidded along the runway, then it rolled onto its back, its right wing shearing off.

In the blink of an eye, passengers found themselves hanging upside down, still strapped into their seats as jet fuel began running down the windows, said Pete Carlson, one of those on the flight.

“The absolute initial feeling is just, ‘Need to get out of this,’” Mr. Carlson told CBC, the Canadian national broadcaster.

But after a horrific string of fatal aviation accidents over the past two months, this crash proved different. Flight attendants and passengers were able to help each other out of the emergency exits and onto the snow. At least 18 people were injured, including one adult and one child in critical but non-life threatening condition, but everyone was expected to survive. By late Monday, some of the injured passengers had been released from the hospital, Delta said.

The jet, a Bombardier CRJ900 operated by a Delta subsidiary, Endeavor Air, was landing at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time after a seemingly normal flight along the busy route between Minneapolis and Toronto.

“The second that the wheels hit the ground, then everything happened,” said Pete Koukov, a professional skier from Colorado, in an interview on Monday night. “The next thing I know, we’re sideways.”

The plane skidded on its right side, said Mr. Koukov, who was sitting at a window seat on the other side of the plane. He saw sparks and flames as the plane hit the ground.

When the plane came to a stop belly-up, he unbuckled and lowered himself down to the ceiling of the aircraft, which was now its floor, Mr. Koukov said. “People were panicking.”

A video taken by Mr. Koukov shows a flight attendant helping passengers climb out of the plane, urging them to hurry and to leave their belongings behind.

Other videos from the scene showed flames and black smoke billowing from the plane as firefighters hosed it down. Photos taken after the crash showed most of the right wing of the jet shorn off, and the left wing damaged with the left landing gear still attached to the plane.

In the aftermath of the crash, an air traffic controller told a medical helicopter pilot who offered to help: “There are people outside walking around the aircraft there.”

“Yeah, we’ve got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning,” the helicopter pilot responded, according to LiveATC audio.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will lead the investigation into the crash, officials have said, and the National Transportation Safety Board has said it was leading a team of American investigators to assist the Canadian authorities.

The crash is likely to create aviation chaos for days to come. Toronto Pearson, Canada’s largest and busiest airport, was already juggling a slew of delays and cancellations caused by a series of winter storms. Although its operations resumed on Monday afternoon, two of its five runways remain closed.

Few details have been released about the crash so far. At two short news conferences, Canadian officials gave brief statements but would not take questions.

But the government’s weather service said that gusts of up to 38 miles an hour were coming from the west as it was landing. There was also drifting snow in the Toronto area, which was struck by two snowstorms in the past few days.

The jet’s pilots had told passengers during the flight that there were windy conditions, said Mr. Carlson, the paramedic who was on the flight. But he and others were still unprepared for the jolt when it came. “It was cement and metal,” he said.

Mr. Carlson, who had a scrape visible on his head, said he saw a woman who had ended up under a seat and a mother and a boy who were sitting on the ceiling of the aircraft. He had no idea what state any of them were in, he said. “My fatherly instinct and background as a paramedic kind of kicked in,” he said, making him focus on ensuring that they all got off the plane.

Even in those panicky moments, there was a palpable camaraderie as they escaped the plane, he said. “Everyone on that plane suddenly became very close in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another,” he said. “That was powerful.”

Jet fuel was running down the airplane’s windows, Mr. Carlson said. And after leaving the plane, he and others tried to move as far from it as possible once he noticed that a wing was missing and heard sounds of an explosion.

Emerging from the upside-down plane, onto the tarmac and into the blowing snow on Monday, Mr. Carlson said, “it felt like I was stepping onto the tundra.”

“I didn’t care how cold it was,” he said. “I didn’t care how far I had to walk, how long I had to stand. All of us wanted to just be out of the aircraft.”

Remy Tumin, Norimitsu Onishi, Tiffany May and Niraj Chokshi contributed reporting.